Internet & Networking: Internet Mailing Lists Guides and Resources

INTERNET & NETWORKING: Internet Mailing Lists Guides and Resources
IN THIS DOCUMENT: General Information Listserv Guides and Resources Listserv Lists and USENET Newsgroups Finding Other Mailing Lists Netiquette Related Frequently Asked Questions	SEE ALSO: IFLANET Mailing Lists IFLA-L Mailing List DIGLIB Mailing List LIBJOBS Mailing List SUGGESTIONS TO: IFLANET@ifla.org
GENERAL INFORMATION What is a List Server? Electronic mailing lists provide forums for Internet users to participate in discussions or receive information on thousands of topics. The software responsible for the management and distribution of these mailing lists to thousands of subscribers are commonly called "list servers". A list server automatically distributes an e-mail message from one member of a list to all other members on that list. However, not all list servers are the same. There are different varieties of list server software that all a user to create and manage mailing lists. One of the most common is called LISTSERV. LISTSERV is now a commercial product sold by the developer of the software, Eric Thomas's L-Soft. The software was originally designed to operate on IBMs VM operating system and is now being made available on other common operating systems. LISTSERV is the software being operated by the National Library of Canada and the International Federation of Library Associations. Other common types of mailing list software are "majordomo" and "listproc". Majordomo is a freeware system. Listproc is owned and developed by BITNET. Digests, electronic journals, announcements, and discussion groups are some of the types of content that are delivered through the thousands of lists available on the Internet. When you subscribe to a list, your name and e-mail address is automatically added to the list. You will receive a standard letter of welcome (via e-mail) telling you about the list. From that time on, you will receive all mail (postings) sent to the list by its members. You may follow the discussions or join in on them. If you respond, you can send your response to the list (in which case, all members of the list will receive it), or to an individual on the list. You can signoff (unsubscribe) from a list at any time. You can also get a listing of all the members of a list and their e-mail addresses. How do list servers work? Image courtesy of the Tri-Service Toxicology Consortium Basic Commands Subscribing To subscribe to a list, send an e-mail message to the mailing list address with one line in the body of the letter: subscribe listname yourname where listname is the name of the list, and yourname is your full name (e.g. sub SAS-L John Smith). Unsubscribing To have your name removed from a mailing list, send an e-mail message to the mailing list address with one line in the body of the letter: SIGNOFF listname where listname is the name of the list (e.g. signoff SAS-L). Posting If you have an article (comments, questions, etc.) that you wish to distribute to all members of a list, send it as e-mail to the list address for that list. Please note that the list address is different from the mailing list address Other LISTSERV Commands Acknowledgement You can control the amount of acknowledgement you receive from a list at the completion of a mail operation by sending an e-mail message to the mailing list address with one line in the body of the message: SET listname option where listname is the name of the list, and option is ACK, MSGACK, or NOACK. ACK provides mail acknowledgement, MSGACK provides acknowledgement of interactive messages only, and NOACK provides no acknowledgement. Review and Conceal Sending an e-mail message to the mailing list address with one line in the body of the message: REVIEW listname will provide you with the network address and name of all the list's subscribers. Sending an e-mail message to the mailing list address with one line in the body of the message: SET listname CONCEAL hides your name from users issuing the REVIEW command. LISTSERV GUIDES AND RESOURCES L-Soft LISTSERV IFLANET lists are currently using L-Soft LISTSERV. The documents below are available on the L-Soft server and are mirrored here for the use of IFLANET list owners, users, and moderators. L-Soft. URL: http://www.lsoft.com/ LISTSERV General User's Guide. LISTSERV version 1.8c - December 16, 1996 URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/user.txt PDF: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/user.pdf List Owner's Manual for LISTSERV version 1.8c - Revision 2, August 18, 1997. URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/owner.txt PDF: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/owner.pdf Postscript (DOS ZIPPED. 8-1/2" x 11" for North American users.) URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/ownerps.zip Postscript (DOS ZIPPED. A4 paper size for European and other users.) URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/owna4ps.zip LISTSERV List Owner's Quick Start. LISTSERV version 1.8c - October 24, 1996. URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/qs.txt PDF: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/qs.pdf TERENA LISTSERV Resources LISTSERV - General Information. URL: http://www.terena.nl/libr/gnrt/group/listserv.html Listserv List Owner's Survival Guide. Version 1, April 1995. URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/losg.txt PDF: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/losg.pdf LISTSERV Guide for General Users. URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/lsvguide.txt PDF: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/lsvguide.pdf LISTSERV Quick Reference URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/lsvquick.txt LISTSERV Starter Guide URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/lsvstart.txt Miscellaneous Discussion Lists: Mailing List Manager Commands. James Milles, Saint Louis University Law Library. URL: http://lawwww.cwru.edu/cwrulaw/faculty/milles/mailser.html URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/filefsvg.txt Setting up the LISTSERV File Server: A Beginner's Guide. Benjamin E. Chi, 1993. URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/filefsvg.txt General Comments on Creating an E-mail List. URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/hoag.txt LISTSERV LISTS AND USENET NEWSGROUPS LSTOWN-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM The LSTOWN-L list is for list-owners and moderators to discuss problems and issues regarding LISTSERV operation and maintenance. LSTOWN-L archives - list owners' forum URL: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/lstown-l.html LSTSRV-L@PEACH.EASE.LSOFT.COM LSTSRV-L@UGA.BITNET These lists are primarily for LISTSERV maintainers but may be of interest to those interested in how the LISTSERV software works. LSTSRV-L archives - Technical forum URL: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/lstsrv-l.html NEW-LIST@NDSUVM1.BITNET The NEW-LIST list is the primary location for announcements of new mailing lists. List management newsgroups comp.mail.list-admin.policy comp.mail.list-admin.software FINDING OTHER MAILING LISTS da Silva, Stephanie. Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists. A list of mailing lists available primarily through the Internet and the UUCP network. Indexed by name and subject. URL: http://www.neosoft.com/internet/paml/ URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mail/mailing-lists/ EDWEB. K-12: E-Mail Discussion Lists and Electronic Journals URL: http://edweb.gsn.org/ Interlinks. E-Mail Discussion Groups Searchable database of more than 5900 lists. URL: http://alabanza.com/kabacoff/Inter-Links/listserv.html Kovacs, Diane K. Directory of Scholarly Electronic Conferences. FTP archive of various academic lists. Corresponds roughly with the print version. WWW site includes mailing lists, newsgroups and others. URL: http://n2h2.com/KOVACS/ L-Soft International. CataList, the official catalog of LISTSERV lists. Updated daily. URL: http://www.lsoft.com/lists/listref.html ListTool.com ListTool. Tool that makes the process of subscribing, unsubscribing and sending commands to mailing and discussion lists easy. URL: http://www.listtool.com/ Liszt. Liszt. A directory of over 70,000 listserv, listproc, majordomo and independently managed mailing lists. URL: http://www.liszt.com/ Neosoft. Publicly Accessible Mailing Lists. URL: http://www.NeoSoft.com/internet/paml/ NetSpace. Mailing List WWW Gateway (LWGate). URL: http://www.netspace.org/cgi-bin/lwgate TILE.NET. TILE.NET/LISTS A reference to Internet discussion groups. Lists of lists indexed alphabetically by description, by name, by host country, by sponsoring organization, most popular, by subject. URL: http://tile.net/lists/ NETIQUETTE Common things to avoid on list servers Don't SPAM!!! SPAM An advertisement or other unsolicited material sent to large numbers of mailing lists with no consideration for whether or not the material is appropriate for the lists it is being sent to. A single "spam" can result in the delivery of millions of unwanted e-mail messages worldwide, costing the victims and service providers a total of several hundred thousand dollars. The cost to the spammer is usually under five dollars. To be effective, a counter-measure must neutralize the spam within the first five minutes. Consequently, there is no time for all the LISTSERV servers to compare notes with each other before acting, and some legitimate postings may be intercepted erroneously. (definition from the Tri-Service Toxicology Consortium) Commands are sent to the LISTSERV and not the list. Access to a mailing list is a privilege and not a right. Use your language with care. Be somewhat cautious when communicating to list servers or newsgroups. Be able to support what you say. There have been libel cases relating to messages sent to mailing lists. There will likely be more in the future. Hambridge, Sally. Netiquette Guidelines. RFC 1855. URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/rfc1855.txt Rinaldi, Arlene H. The Net: User Guidelines and Netiquette. July 1994. URL: http://www.fau.edu/netiquette/netiquette.html PDF: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/netiquet.pdf Brochure suitable for classroom use. PDF: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/netbroch.pdf AT&T Netiquette Notes URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/netqttel.txt RELATED FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Mailing list admin FAQ. URL: http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/mail/list-admin/ Mailing list management software FAQ. URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mail/list-admin/software-faq/ Diane Kovacs, et. al.. How to Start and Manage a BITNET LISTSERV Discussion Group: A Beginner's Guide. The Public-Access Computer Systems Review 2, no. 1 (1991): 128-143. URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/kovacs.txt Internet Users' Guide to Subscription Mailing Lists. URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/listhelp.txt Using BITNET: An Introduction. URL: http://www.ifla.org/I/training/listserv/bitnet.txt Email Addressing FAQ (How to use user+box@host addresses). URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mail/addressing/ FAQ: Client-server mail protocols. URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mail/mailclient-faq/ MIME (Multimedia Internet Mail Extensions) FAQ. URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mail/mime-faq/ MAJORDOMO. URL: http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/~barr/majordomo-faq.html USENET FAQs for comp.mail.misc URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/by-newsgroup/comp/comp.mail.misc.html FAQ: International E-mail accessibility URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mail/country-codes/ FAQ: LAN Mail Protocols Summary URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/LANs/mail-protocols/ FAQ: Accessing the Internet by E-Mail. URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/internet-services/access-via-email/ FAQ: How can I send a fax from the Internet? URL: http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/fax-faq/ FAQ: How to find people's E-mail addresses. URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/finding-addresses/ URL: http://www.qucis.queensu.ca/FAQs/email/finding.html Updated Inter-Network Mail Guides. URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mail/inter-network-guide/ Mailing Lists Available in Usenet. URL: http://www.cis.ohio-state.edu/hypertext/faq/usenet/mail/mailing-lists/ FAQ: Filtering Mail. URL: ftp://ftp.halcyon.com/pub/ii/internet/filtering_mail_faq.txt URL: ftp://rtfm.mit.edu/pub/usenet/news.answers/mail/filtering-faq URL: http://www.ii.com/internet/faqs/launchers/mail/filtering-faq/ FAQ: Mail Archive Server software list. URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mail/archive-servers/faq/ Pointer to Mail Archive Servers FAQ URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/mail/archive-servers/pointer/ Blacklist of Internet Advertisers. URL: http://math-www.uni-paderborn.de/~axel/BL/blacklist.html Advertising on Usenet: How To Do It, How Not To Do It. URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/advertising/how-to/part1/ FAQ: Current Usenet spam thresholds and guidelines. URL: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/usenet/spam-faq/


Latest Revision: 1999-08-24	Copyright © 1995-2000 International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions www.ifla.org